C. Wijeyawickrema
Black-whites vs. Monks
If we examine the history of Sri Lanka as a history of a clash between the black-white ruling class and the temple, it is not difficult to understand and explain why the country is in a big mess today. The mismanagement is complete and total from any angle one looks at, except for a class of black-whites who thrive at the expense of masses, manipulating the system that they have created after 1910 or so. Covering the period 1802-2017, I tried to study this history, and developed several essays printed in Sinhala on Lankaweb https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/category/c-wijeyawickrema/ and the Sinhala Bauddhaya monthly newspaper. To give the reader a simplified idea, a black-white is one who embraces knowingly or unintentionally the superiority of Europe (Eurocentric thinking), and in the present context, one who supports the theory of 13-A.
While presenting some relevant features that I was able to glean from the exercise mentioned above, my focus in this essay is to provide an answer to the hair-splitting arguments made under a black-white paradigm, leading to balkanization of Sri Lanka, first attempted during 1995-2000, and now again in 2017, the death-trap result of a long scratching backs game played by the Sinhala (mostly Christian) and the Tamil (Christian) black-whites since 1923. The black-whites prevented the utilization of Sinhala Buddhist paradigm of sustainable development and community peace in the 1930s and 1940s based on the Buddhist Middle Path. It was inactive until 2000 when the late Ven. Soma resurrected it and again in May 2012 by the Bodu Bala Sena. The Asgiriya Declaration in July 2017, hopefully will save the country from a black-white turmoil. How and why the Dharmapala movement, and the Ven. Kalukondayawe Pragnasekera national movement of crime eradication and village reconstruction, got buried after the 1915 Buddhist-Islam clash, and nobodies becoming somebodies after the grant of universal suffrage in 1931, which all the black-whites opposed except the labor leader A. E. Gunasighe, is a mystery in democracy.
Climax of a clash
In their historical accounts, western-educated locals did not reveal, how colonial and post-colonial black-whites killed, suppressed or derailed the temple-based paradigm of Buddhist politics aimed at modifying or abolishing the black-white paradigm of white man’s law (system of governance). This clash has now reached a catastrophic stage, requiring immediate intervention of the monks in the country to arrest and prevent the disintegration of the 2600-year old Sinhala Buddhist civilization of this island where Christians, Tamils and Muslims lived amicably, before black-whites ruined it with divide-and rule- partisan politics. Fortunately, the Asgiriya Karaka Sabha has already understood this historic, national mission.
Ironically, two opposing sides expressed this opinion recently, while a plan to balkanize Sri Lanka with a new constitution by a Marxist-half-Christian dollar-funded group is being implemented. On one side is H. L. Seneviratna of the work of king” fame, who is asking young intelligent monks to float a sanga revolution to correct the errors made by the monks of Sinhala Buddhism. For him the good society we had prior to 1956 was destroyed by these monks. The Bodu Bala Sena monk Ven. Galabodaatte Gnanasara, on the other hand ask for a sangayanava by the monks to sort it out and discuss the total mess the country is in. Even the yahapala monk, Ven. Dambara Amila is asking for a sangayanava. After 1960 all kinds of commission reports came out as a result of the clash between black-white ruling class and the temple, and a sangayanava has enough background material to commence its task.
Militant Buddhism
In the separatist chapter of this clash black-whites said, this war is not winnable,” and supported the 13-A death trap. This historical approach brought to light how Sri Lankan black-white politicians manipulated some inherent Sinhala Buddhist characteristics to deceive them, until after May 2012 the Bodu Bala Sena openly disclosed that the Sinhala Buddhists have no leader for them. The Tambiah formula of how can Buddhists kill,” is used by black-whites as a trick to silence Buddhist agitations against injustice. For example, Tisaranee Gunasekera says, Monk Virathu of 969 Movement in Burma is a Buddhist Ben Laden, without even a word about the threat to Buddhist way of life in Burma from Islamic invasions. Why did Buddhists in Burma change from compassion to kill?
Militant Buddhism is disciplined protest, against a system of political injustice, when all other options fail. It involves suffering and extreme sacrifice. This is not what JVP monks display about SAITM on roads or what some SLFP-JO monks tried at the Hambantota port complex or using the begging bowl to collect donations to pay a court-imposed fine for a crime. Partisan politics blind monks to take un-Buddhist decisions. Why Buddhists in Sri Lanka are becoming militant could be clearly understood from an examination of the history of the clash between black-whites and the monks. The general pattern emerging cannot be tainted by citing the behavior of this monk or that monk. I tried to classify this history into overlapping phases by themes, which in turn help in assessing current events in their historical context.
Balkanization of Sri Lanka
For example, consider the following events, all dancing around the 13-A dilemma. First was the jubilation of DBS Jeyaraj over the SC three-judge decision that federalism is not separatism, which I consider as both true and false statement. Then comes Dayan Jayatilaka, who has been the self-appointed step-father of the 13-A project in Sri Lanka, who has now parked his mid-life car in the SLFP garage, whitewashing 13-A as the settled middle path of SLFP politics. After what Wigneswaran did to him, despite having not one but, two Sinhala daughters-in law, Dayan no longer talks about Tamil moderates. It is a change from Tamil middle path to SLFP middle path. Finally, Wigneswaran himself come to the picture after attending a presentation ceremony of a book written by one Kusal Perera. He badmouths that the Asgiriya Karaka Sabha rejected his federal formula. However, the best news item is from the public interest lawyer Nagananda Kodituwakku, who has come forward as a 2020 presidential candidate with clear declaration that he will abolish 13-A. He will be able to remove the Colebrooke artificial provincial boundary formula of 1832 and meaningfully empower Tamil, Muslim and Sinhala people at village-level with a Jana Sabha system, demarcated not based on race, religion or language as the corrupt politicians want, but with natural, ecological boundaries as in New Zealand.
Unlike the Malwatte Chief Priest, Asgiriya Chapter takes decisions as a group, the Buddhist way, and Wigneswaran failed to sell the 3-judge decision to Asgiriya monks. Thus, he brands Malwatte as humane and Asgiriya as arrogant. He was hurt like a wounded wild boar, and he concludes:
After all their arrogance is artificial. It is based on false beliefs, wrong presumptions and distorted perceptions. Once the truth is stated or is recognized they would return to their real fundamental Buddhistic base which is understanding and love, not hatred and suspiration.”
What could one expect from a guy who believes that there was Tamil genocide by the government since 1948 and that ancient Buddhist ruins in North and East were the work of Tamil Buddhists who later became Hindus. Can he cite a single instance of a Buddhist monk harming or inciting others to harm a Tamil, a Muslim or a Christian evangelist? There are volumes of documents written against the F solution since the days it was promoted by Ananadasangaari, but Mrs. Dayan J warns us that the silence of Asgiriya monks on Wigneswaran’s theory was a bad omen, especially, if his trip to Kandy was part of a grand design.
Federalism is Separatism
When Abraham Sumanthiran says give us what you cannot take back, we are reminded of Chelvanayagam’s little now and more later formula. Therefore, the question that an American asked from my friend in Texas becomes highly relevant, how can you unite by dividing?” The book knowledge of the 3-judges is correct, but they do not know the facts of geography and history. Yes, F is not S when different political units decide to become F for economic, security and other geopolitical reasons such as massive size as in USA. But in little Sri Lanka F is S because S is a movement that began as far back as in 1918. In 1923, Ponnambalam Arunachalam formed the Ceylon Tamil Association, the idea of a pan-Tamilian state- to keep alive and propagate throughout Ceylon, Southern India and the Tamil colonies, the union and solidarity of Tamilakam, the Tamil Land. The demand for a separate Tamil country in south India, a Dravidasthan, was the oxygen that kept this line of thinking alive.
Tamil and Sinhala black-whites
The temple history indicates clearly, how Christian-influenced Sinhala black-whites removed monks from the national independence movement, and how Buddhist Middle Path (reasonableness doctrine) was not followed in meeting the separatist challenge from a frustrated Christian Tamil leadership. This is an aspect that comes to light as a by-product of an examination of the conflict between black-whites and the monks. Today, when a former Christian Marxist Carlo Fonseka at the age 90+ says that if Ven. Maduluwave Sobhita was alive he would have used Buddhist approach to solve at least some of the problems in the country, a reasonable reaction would be to ask him where was he 20 or 30 years ago?
Dayan, another somewhat tamed or restrained black-white, was thinking of the golden mean of Aristotle when he talks about the SLFP middle path. For him a de-merged N & E is 13-A-, and a separated N & E with a new Senate is 13-A+. But he is silent about the land and police powers. Wigneswaran has proven already why land and police powers should be removed from 13-A. The Middle Path in Buddhism has an eight-fold yardstick which collectively determine what is the Middle Path on a given subject. Instead, Dayan’s is Eurocentric thinking based on some American professors’ formula of non-majoritarian solutions which sooner or later break countries into ethnic pieces. A Buddhist Middle Path is different from an Aristotle-type of mean because it should be a reasonable solution to Sinhala fears of balkanization of the nation. That Middle Path cuts across the 13-A separatist wall.
Stages of clash between black-whites vs. monks
- 1798-1873 – Buddhism = primitive idol worship
- 1840s-> Buddhism in death-bed
- 1880-1915->Olcott – Dharmapala period
- 1931-1948 – Donoughmore period; social service of Vidyodaya monks
- 1946-> political service of Vidyalankara monks
- 1956-1959 – Five Great Forces
- 1960-1978 – the Dark age
- 1978-2005 – The un-just Society
- 2000-2003 – Ven. Soma phenomenon
- 2004-2010-> Pirith Nuul outbreak
- 2012 May-> Bodu Bala Sena movement
- 2017 June 20 – Asgiriya Declaration, July 4th Asgiriya Notice
A classification of this nature is useful in understanding the vital role played by the temple in saving the Sinhala Buddhist society from extinction such as what had happened in India or Korea. The manipulation of some monks by politicians and the willingness of some monks to get manipulated by politicians came into operation after 1931. Black-whites who reverted back to Buddhism (the Donoughmore Buddhists) and who spoke broken Sinhala used the village monk as an agent to collect village votes. In a way, the late Ven. Maduluwave Sobhitha in 2014, and the pindapatha monks in 2017 fell into this same category. In this drama, black-whites target behavior they do not like, such as Christian Ranjan Ramanayaka calling monks MBW mudalalis, perhaps not knowing that the multi-billion-dollar tax-free mudalali in the world is the Pope.
The link below provides a detailed description of these historical phases.
https://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2017/07/30/%e0%b6%85%e0%b7%83%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%9c%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%bb%e0%b7%92-%e0%b7%80%e0%b7%92%e0%b6%b4%e0%b7%8a%e0%b6%bd%e0%b7%80%e0%b6%ba/
Some salient features gleaned from the historical stages mentioned above.
- Each stage had a monk or several monks who played a catalytic role.
- Such monks faced threat of assassination (Ven. Velivita Sri Saranankara Sangha Raja [1698-1778] was the first target in this era).
- Buddhist monks did not oppose Christian missionary work; instead they facilitated these pastors by hosting them (Juse Vaas was protected by temples from the Dutch).
4.The 1815 Convention was a fraud. Brownrigg had no intention of following it. The ruler secretly supported anti-Buddhist attacks by Christian pastors, and sabotaged the temple education system then in vogue.
5.The black-white class was an invention of McCaulay (Indian Education Minute of 1835). Governor North supported this idea of educating sons of local spies to serve as black-whites. This was officially implemented after Colebrooke’s recommendations in 1832, and Royal college, St Thomas college etc. started. When this was taking place Ven. Valane Siddhartha moved from Panadura to Ratmalana, and started Parama Dhammachethiya Pirivena in 1842. Pupils of this pirivena established Vidyodaya and Vidyalankara. The learned monks of these institutions saved Sri Lanka from relentless white and black-white assault.
- Olcott came in 1880 and he was considered a Bodhisatva. But whether the school education system he created helped the country in the long run is now in doubt. It was a copy of Christian education. Leadbetter was a Christian priest before he came to Ananda college, he left it and lived as a Christian priest.
7.The role played by monks in national affairs ended after Olcott’s interlude and the Buddhist Theosophical Society with English-speaking laymen eclipsed them. By 1911, the two-family model that the British used to facilitate civil control (Obeysekara- de Saram and Kumarasuriyar) had to be replaced by the new foreign educated sons of local black-whites. The 1915 Muslim-Sinhala clash paved way of a new crowd of nobodies to become somebodies in black-white politics. Anagarika Dharmapala understood this black-white phenomenon, but he was mercilessly attacked by new black-whites including D.B. Jayatilaka and D.S. Senanayaka aided and abetted by the white masters. What is happening to the monk Galabodaatte Gnanasara of BBS and to the Asgiriya monks today is reminiscent of what the establishment did then to Dharmapala.
- From 1910 to 1956 mostly Christian Sinhala black-whites and Christian Tamil black-whites handled and messed up affairs of the country. There was no place for monks in the system of politics. Instead the role played by the Vidyalankara monks in the 1940s was branded as work of political monks by the Sinhala black-whites.
- From 1933 onwards Vidyodaya monks led by Ven. Kalukondayawe Pragnasekara implemented a national plan for crime control and rural reconstruction in Ceylon, which became a successful model for the country but it was sabotaged by the white and black-white ruling class. To destroy this movement, black-whites tried to bring in religious factor and went to the extent of throwing mud balls at the young ASP supporting it, digging into his private life. He later married the daughter of the IGP. This sabotage was like what government ministers did to kill the Gami Diriya , villager-centered rural development program, operated free from partisan politics. Instead, a Divi Neguma monster was imposed.
- By 1956, the Olcott-influenced Sinhala Buddhist laymen were in such helpless situation, they went begging to Dudley Senanayaka to come to their rescue who in turn told them to go to SWRD. Previously, DSSenanayaka with the Section 29 of the constitution, sarcastically rebuked them stating there is no Fourth Refuge called Anduwa Saranam Gachchami.
From 1956-2002, what we saw was governments internally controlled by black-white Christians projecting to outside world a picture of implementation of a program of Sinhala Buddhist affirmative action. Removing Sunday weekend, making the two pirivenas universities, making Buddhism government’s foster child, creating a Buddhist ministry while removing history and geography from school curriculum, these were all fake, un-Buddhist action to cheat the masses, generating fodder for anti-Buddhist forces.
The silencing of Anagarika Dharmapala, sabotage of Vidyodaya monk Ven. Kalukondayawe’s program and branding of patriotic Vidyalankara monks as political monks, the use of robe in a coup to murder SWRD, all these had their negative affects until the rise of the Ven. Soma phenomenon in 2000. Then, in May 2012, Bodu Bala Sena came to point out how Sinhala Buddhist black-white politicians treat Sinhala Buddhists just the way some men treat their kind-hearted women.
From 2012-2017 Bodu Bala Sena monk Ven. Gnanasara became a target of attack for his Dharmapala method of exposing politicians’ game, and the government’s sinister attempts to kill the messenger came to an end with the Asgiriya Declaration in July 2017. The subject of this essay, the clash between black-whites and the temple has come to a climax now with Wigeswaran asking federal before the Asgiriya monks, Christian Marxist Dayan Jayatilaka promoting 13-A, and two ardent half-Christian Marxists Lal Wijenayaka and Jayampathi Wickremaratne re-submitting now the 1995-2000 CBK Sri Lanka balkanization plan with tit bits taken from the Tissa Vitharana APRC majority report of 2006. Asgiriya monks informed the government that there is no need for a new constitution at this time, but the government is not listening, most probably because of American pressure. Only clear voice against this propaganda comes from Nagananda Kodituwakku, who says he will abolish 13-A if he becomes the president.
Buddhist solution
Considering that the prevention of the country breaking into pieces is the most important issue today we need to understand how JRJ got struck with the 13-A death trap. He was in a helpless situation after USA betrayed him against Indian tactics, and in 1987 if he did not agree with Rajiv-Dixit plan, India would have occupied N-E Provinces and create a proto-Eelam. Instead of a N&E province, his decision to extend it to the entire country was a wise decision, if the black-whites who came after him understood that this was a design to remove 13-A, in future when circumstances changed. In 1987 JRJ appointed a land commission which recommended in its report in 1990, to re-demarcate administrative boundaries on the basis of river basin regions. When president Sirisena said that the 9-province division was a colonial design, did he know about this report? Ecology, geography, hydrology, global warming, floods, landslides, droughts, sustainable development, all these compel countries big and small to take the river basin path of administrative units. New Zealand is the best example in this regard. The river basin approach allows demarcating units from GSN level to a province-level in size in harmony with nature.
Dayan Jayatilaka ignores this concept which means you cannot legislate against geography.” Instead, he fights with those who want district as the devolution unit on grounds that province is the territorial unit etched in Tamil psyche over the years displaying Tamil identity. This is based on what Kumar Ponnambalam once said, when confronted with the question, what are the problems limited to Tamils only, not faced by other communities.” He paused for a moment and said, Tamils have aspirations.” Private wants and needs of a Tamil is different from politician-generated public demands otherwise known as aspirations, because such demands clash with aspirations of others. Turkey’s politicians have an aspiration to join EU, but French Catholic politicians have an aspiration to keep white Europe free of Islamic invasion. I try to mention the religion and Marxist connection of people because such people cannot fathom the justifiable fear of a Sihala Buddhist when we take the aspiration path.
Dayan thinks India would not allow Sri Lanka to disturb this set up. How did he forget that the 1995-2000 CBK package deal, resurrected now in 2017, make several inroads into this 9-province sacred cow, in order to make sure TNA demand (Neelan Thrichelvam’s desire then in 1997) for a contiguous mono ethnic monster is guaranteed? The geographical distribution of Tamil population in Sri Lanka is like a scrambled egg. If we look at this distribution at electorate level we see several problem areas outside N&E, in addition to the capital city territory that the 2017 draft has identified.
For example, in three previous essays, Balkanization of Sri Lanka, Eelam and water wars and Sinhalayas getting pushed into the Golu muhuda, I used maps developed at the electorate level to demonstrate the complexity and the danger of using ethnicity as a method to carve out administrative units. Using 1977 electoral data, the latest available at that level, I identified 17 electorates with over 50% Tamil voters, 20 with 5-49% of Tamil voters and 120 with only 0.4-4.99 Tamil voters. This last category must be the locations that the Tissa Vitharana report suggested to create Tamil police stations to protect Tamils in Sinhala Villages (link to these maps are given below). Only with a small scale administrative unit, Tamils living in such areas could expect representation on a non-partisan basis0. The link to these maps is:
කළු සුද්දන් විසින් ලංකාව කැබලි කිරීම
When ethnicity, language or religion is used to identify political regions as Dayan is now adamantly promoting using the Indian threat, the slippery path has no end because people then start thinking about not on class lines but on caste faults as happened during JVP time in 1971 or Karuna faction in Batticaloa in 2004. The district-based proportional voting system is thriving on caste connections is not a secret.
Dayans are opening cans of worms with this ethnic province idea because apart from within province ethnic divisions, it is raising outside N&E issues of ethnic divisions. When you support ethnic division in one area you cannot oppose such divisions in another area. What is the solution to Kandyan Indian Tamil electorates? What about the Muslim demand for a Oluvil region? And other locations of Muslim concentration. Therefore, Fidel Castro cannot give solutions to our problems because even Dayan’s father apparently did not know our history and geography, just like SWRD and Dudley did not know it when signing pact with Chelvanayagam.
Instead of talking about the Buddhist Middle Path or the Lichchavi rule, that these black-whites and NGO dollar agents blurt out like parrots, the solution to create a sustainable society in Sri Lanka today is the path Ven. Kalukondayawe showed the nation during 1932-48. It was a joint effort by Sinhala-Tamil and Muslim people at village level with police and other civil officers behind it. Gami Diriya was an attempt to resurrect it, destroyed by politicians. Jana Sabha was another attempt thought about by Basil Rajapaksa before a monster called Divi Neguma jumped out creating a disaster.
Small scale is not a new idea. Small is beautiful and Buddhist economics People are concerned with things closer in space and nearer in time. Panchayat in India or our Gam Sabhava or tribal councils in Africa, North and South American continents maintained sustainable developments in their societies. Gam Sabhava was a unit based on the trinity of community-water tank-temple. Coming directly to our problems today if our grama seva niladhari units (GSNs) are demarcated to meet with natural, ecological, hydrological boundaries, a viable Jana Sabha unit system could come into existence instead of 14,000 arbitrary units we now have (this was only 4,000 before RPremadasa). These Jana Sabhas should be empowered to run local affairs of all sorts. This is the most meaningful devolution of powers where Tamil people dispersed or concentrated could be independent to achieve their private wants and needs, and public aspirations not in conflict with wants and needs of other communities.
In 1999, the report of the commission of inquiry on local government reforms (Abhayawardena Report), recommended going back to the old local government system with ward-based elections, abolishing the pradesheeya sabha thuggery. If this old local government system is rejuvenated with natural boundaries the concept of devolution and empowerment could be implemented through them. It is not the best like a GSN-level Jana Sabha system in identifying more minority-empowering natural units, but still better than a province-based unit which only create a local politician clique, exploiting Tamil ethnic cows. For example, would Tamil caste suppression vanish after a Dayan or Lal Wijenayaka solution? After all, Chelvanayagam or GG Ponnambalam did not promote Tamil aspirations from Colombo. Tamil Nad fulfilled that task for Tamils in Sri Lanka or Malaysia. Similarly, an Abraham Sumanthiran, Wigneswaran, Sampanthan or Douglas Devananda is not going to be a Tamil hero preserving Tamil culture from a location in Sri Lanka because Tamil homeland is in Tamil Nad with an old rich Tamil Base.
For those who suggest European made non-majoritarian tools such as deputy PMs of Tamil and Muslim origin at the central government level, quota systems etc. a national entity formed by representatives from local Jana Sabhas is a better approach than an ethnicity enforcing germ of divided thinking at any level. As it is, minority politicians have a better deal individually and collectively than new deputy PM posts to be created, in protecting their turf. This is so obvious to the extent, that Sihala Buddhists feel that they do not have a leader for them.
Asgiriya monks, Nagananda Kodituwakku, organizers of Viyath Maga and Eliya, Bodu Bala Sena, Malinda Seneviratna, Madusha Ramanayaka, Gevindu Kumaratunga, Sarath Weerasekera, Anruddha Padeniya etc. and various other Sinhala Buddhist entities need to get together, and start an action program to remove 13-A and empower people at the Jana Sabha level. They must come under one umbrella if they want to prevent the country falling into an abyss. Except for a handful the 225 MPs in the parliament are not suitable or qualified to handle this threat. One aspect of a new snagayanava has to be cleaning the Sasanaya, the other prevention of balkanization of the country and the third, a systematic approach to come out of a century old results of mismanagement. For this a new generation of dedicated men and women free of partisan politics must develop a plan of action to win the confidence of people of Sri Lanka who are not black-whites. It is still not too late to undertake this task asking new questions, instead of not providing new answers to old problems.
(Since essays of this nature do not get printing space in English news media I will make sure that Dr. Dayan Jayatilaka gets and e-mail copy.)
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It was no surprise to hear what the Prime Minister and the Minister for Provincial Councils say about the time limit being given to the new Delimitation Committee to be appointed, to finish their work in four months. Have we not heard enough of earlier Delimitation Committees asking for more time, which could be a necessity; and do we also not know how the same Minister has blamed the delay in Local Government polls on the Delimitation Commissioners?